The Cameroons need to be blunter

e.g.

Extra government borrowing is just extra tax to pay in the future

If Gordon had managed the economy properly we'd have the cash to help now

NickL

What about "Gordon Brown's age of irresponsibility" or "the age of Gordon Brown's irresponsibility"?

Drew

"Debt is the problem, not the solution - we can't keep on borrowing from our grandchildren"

Pete, Scotland

"Gordon Brown himself has declared his time as Chancellor as an age of irrespossibility"

mitch

Gordon Brown, stealing your childrens money to buy the next election.

Gordon Brown,robbing the future to pay for his past mistakes.

Gordon Brown,stealing from success to reward failure.

Huw Thornton

"This government threw away precious public money in handfuls. Do you really think that they can help hard pressed families now?"

Arkangel

Gordon Brown...robbing us blind!

Travis Bickle

I have to say this Gordon Brown fellow is doing an excellent job at trashing the irresponsible bloke of the same name who was in charge of our economy these past 11 years.

Strangely enough many of us actually seem to believe that they are different people.

Short the UK

We had the biggest boom in British history and now we are going to have a painful bust.

Our banks having being going bust because of over-priced property prices. Nothing to do with sub-prime.

Had the BOE had banking oversight it wouldn't be so big a bust.

Crash Gordon.

Taxes will need to rise.

Spending will need to be cut.

Too much "bad" money caused a big boom.

We expect house prices to fall much further and unemployment to increase because of the Brown Bust.

Crash Gordon.

Boom & Bust Brown.

Our extremely low savings rate needs to rise. We must live within our means. Be frugal, prudent, wise.

We must take a wise approach to getting our country's finances balanced.

Key words/phrases:

Crash
Bubble
Debt.
Prudent.
Wise.
Frugal.
Live within our means.
Recover.
Help.

Sean

"This is a problem caused by Brown's regulatory system"

"We are feeling the pain because Brown wanted more financial risk takers"

Chris Miller

Gordon Brown - what a Twat !

Pete, Scotland

They are closing Post Offices that old people depend on.

Tom

This technique was used to great effect by Blair / Brown before the 1997 election. The logic being that most people are not that interested in politics so the endless use of a few key phrases is required to get the message through.

'Labour waste your money'

'Labour's regulation of the Banks failed'

'Labour's bubble and Labour's bust'

'Labour's negligence and imprudence'

northernmonkey

The banks failed because New Labour failed.

Hugh T

Gordon as Chancellor built a castle on sand not rock, so that it is easily swept away by the incoming global economic storm, rather than being able to withstand it if it had been built on rock (not the Northern Rock type!).

Weak men blame others for their errors.

Matthew Oliver

'The Prime Minister's (always treat the office with respect - that is something we can learn from the US) failure to prepare has meant we have had to be prepared for him to fail.'

we = the conservative party but you could rephrase and replace with british taxpayer

Percepied

Brown denies responsibility for the financial problems he created, but seeks adulation for whatever is seen to fix it

CS

***So what should the Tories’ insta-responses be? The simple one-liners that they should have memorised for all occasions; which can be trotted out in response to any question, regardless of the question; and which could hit home with voters?***

If ever I needed confirmation of how shallow and transient your opinion are, Peter, the above quote says it all. Can we assume that we'll never hear you moan about spin-obsessed politicians?

TGF UKIP

If, as am opposition, we had a conservative party they would be able to transmit a very simple message about Brown's Brtiain -

Over-spent, over-borrowed, over-taxed and bust.

Unfortunately, though ......

Ian C

Neither side will get it right until they analyse the problem correctly. The problem is not promarily a liquidity shortage and renewing lending that individuals can repay and the corpoarte sector don't need/want.

It is a credibility shortage in the banks because no-one knows where the bodies are or what they're worth. Why are spreads still so wide? Because they still don't know who holds the toxic stuff.

Pumping money into a system awash with financial support from central banks does not solve the problem, although it helps.

There is half the total package still missing. Sooner or later everyone will wake up to it and the Tories will have missed their chance.

Unless the are quick that line of attack will be lost because of their total support (and the first call) for the current 'Brown solution'.

Steve Green (Daily Referendum Blog).

There is no doubt that we are "up Shit Creek without a paddle" because Brown sold the paddle when paddles where at the bottom of the market. And to use a Cameron-esque metaphor - we are up to our ankles in shit because Brown did not fix the boat when he had more than enough of our money to do so.

Short the UK

I think the big problem for the Tories is that they are behind the curve. They have not been Bearish enough - like the Cable Guy.

Maybe they are hanging out with too many Bulls?

I suggest they get talking with some serious Bears, so that they can get ahead of the curve - then when we arrive there the public thinks gosh those guys are smart.

Let Labour attack the premise and when it happens - bingo!

I think we are going to have a long depression and I think that the Tories need to start using the D word. That is getting ahead of the curve - that is being very bold and brave. It is a risk. But you take big risks in the market for big rewards.

The Doomsters too talk to:

~Satyajit Das - derivatives expert.
~Roger Bootle - economist.
~Merryn Somerset - journalist.
~Bill Adlard - chartist.

There are many more but focus on the people who keep calling it right. The above four are nailing it big time!!!

All hail the Doomsters...

The ponzi is collapsing...

Bob.India

David Cameron's website invited me to email him, so I've just done so. Amongst other things, I've in turn invited him to think the formerly unthinkable. I do hope the message isn't immediately diverted to the electronic "file 13".

Dear Mr Cameron

I’m moved to write briefly on the ghastly resurgence of Gordon Brown and the crying need for the Conservative Party to clearly demonstrate to a willing and receptive British Electorate that our current Prime Minister plus previous Federal Reserve Chairman are the architects of our present national and global financial catastrophes, that the Conservative Party utterly repudiates Brown’s “recovery” intention to significantly further the nation’s indebtedness and enlarge the State and that the Party has a rational and coherent plan to immediately reduce public spending, shrink the State and ultimately reduce a national and local personal and business tax burden that has rocketed over the past eleven years.

The Prime Minister has recently engineered the return of the “Prince of Darkness”, aka Peter Mandelson, ostensibly to take the reins as Secretary of State for Business but in reality, to handle spin, image and election strategy. Is it beyond the wildest expectation to consider the return of the “Vulcan”, aka John Redwood to handle the fundamental economic rethink that the Conservative Party now requires?

Similarly, do we not now need a bruising and supremely experienced heavyweight, such as Ken Clarke, to take over as Shadow Chancellor, to assist you in the overdue demolition of Brown and his loathsome government?

The Electorate is not interested in a quiescent bipartisan approach by the Conservative Party – it wants to see significant quantities of blood on the carpet (and walls) in a very short time!

Cometh the hour (now the eleventh for the Conservative Party) cometh the men. Please get moving quickly before midnight strikes, you are yesterday’s men, and we all slide into the abyss.

Yours sincerely

Bob.India

In case team Cameron does not read this blog, I have taken the liberty of a second (and last) email to Mr Cameron:

Dear Mr Cameron

Further to my previous email, you may wish to consider a simple slogan in relation to New Labour, which may appeal to the Electorate, along the lines of, “Over taxed, Over borrowed, Over the hill”. The similarity to a certain war-time slogan may produce a pleasing resonance.

Yours sincerely

eric

Vote Cameron get Blair.

Andrew

"Debts up; Taxes up; Jobless up; Time's up"

alan

digging for victory!

keep digging Brown and victory will be ours!

So this is the new age. the new way of governing. Less days for parliament to discuss matters. Inner Cabal's, More Spin Doctors than Tony Blair! Untruths like, this is a Global problem when you started it here in the United Kingdom!

The USA is not at fault for all the credit taken out by ordinary people, for the mortgages on 400% of salary! for the mountains of debt created by YOU, and YOU alone.

The Iron Chancellor indeed - you certainly have placed all families in this country in the iron grip of debt!

Tiberius

"The Prime Minister played a huge role in getting us into this mess by racking up government debt when we and others told him it was dangerous."

"It is shameful that now having taken our and others' advice on recapitalizing the banks, he's grandstanding as the world's saviour."

The Tories' problem is that you can't explain that in two five-word paragraphs (well I can't, but perhaps some professional spinmeister can.)

teledu

Wastes your money in good times; wastes your children's money in bad times.

David Lindsay

Only Newsnight, which I am starting to think that I am the last person watching, mentioned Cameron's "fightback" at all on the television last night.

And it also made it clear that the knives were out for the Invisible and Inaudible Man, George Osborne.

Only there because he's a member of the Bullingdon Club. But nearly never let into that, on account of how he is only being Saint Paul's, and his father is a mere baronet who is in trade. Cameron, by contrast, had sailed in.

So, to Cameron, this jumped up little oik is entirely dispensable. And will very soon be dispensed with.

Pete Hoskin

CS: aphorisms needn't be lies...

Shaun Pilkington

Gordon Brown repeatedly claimed to have done away with boom and bust. Now it becomes clear: he was half-right!

mitch

Gordon Brown lifting people out of poverty and into debt.

mart

How about:

"America has made its mistakes but we have also made ours."

"Low interest rates and dangerously high debt. Both of which might have been avoided."

"Too much debt was built up in recent years because interest rates were too low."

"Interest rates were too low because the wrong targets were given to the MPC."

"Labour boasted of its credibility for managing the economy. While the debt was building up, this appeared to be a fair assessment. Now we can see it was not so fair an assessment."

And finally a higher-risk, but humbler approach:

"The economic cycle tends to go up and down. We (the Tories) know that and the country will remember the pain that we went through at the time we were in power. Now Labour, who so often boasted they were so much better than us, are finding it is not so easy as they thought."

alan phillips

"Boil in the bag finance, where it takes an age to warm up, is messy when you open it and the only indication of whether or not its any good, is when its on your plate"

David J

The Age of Irresponsibility was the Age of New Labour

Matt

Brown's Boom and Bust.

Brown's debt mountain.

New Labour, New recession.

Labour always tax, spend and borrow and always run out of money.

Steve Green (Daily Referendum Blog).

While Gordon Brown dithered, the banks withered, the ftse slivered, the elderly shivered and the country quivered.

Ben Clift

If Gordon Brown had behaved like this in his personal finances, he would have been credit blacklisted a long time ago

tipsy

Economy Brown and out?

Ent

Bailing out the banks = subsidising corruption.

If you subsidise something you always get more of it.

Nicholas

Blunter? Or sharper? Methinks the latter is what is needed.

New Labour. Same Old Mess.

New Labour. What they say is not what you get.

The Four Horsemen of New Labour: tax, waste, corruption and spin.

New Labour. National Socialists for the 21st Century.

New Labour. Government sans frontières.

New Labour. The Clown Princes of Chaos.

New Labour. An Integrity Free Zone.

New Labour. Heads They Win. Tails You Lose.

New Labour. More Ugly Women and Chips Than Blackpool.

New Labour. Building East Germany in England's Green and Pleasant Land.

New Labour. Little Britain.

mac

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance".

Cicero, 55 BC

Sharpie

Labour's bubble has burst

Michael Taylor

I have, quite simply, no idea why the Telegraph keeps repeating the assertion that Gordon Brown is somehow 'having a good crisis.'

I suspect you are simply following the BBC's propaganda. If you talk to people, you will find a level of anger and outrage at what Brown has done, and how, and what it's going to mean for us, that I've never known before. This is a hated and despised government which is destroying Britain's economy, Britain's freedom, Britain's future and Britain's self-respect in double-quick time.

Nicholas

Michael Taylor is absolutely correct. Just read the comments in response to Brown's article in the Telegraph. I have never seen anything like it. They represent not just disagreement but hostility bordering on hatred.

DM

Quite so Michael Taylor. ^The media are the laziest, spoon fed bunch of sycophants who have no idea about what people think in the rest of the country outside Westminster.

Hugh T

The current crisis is Brown's crisis and is Brown's fault arising from Brown's incompetence and Brown's failure. Every sorry bit of it has got Brown's sticky finger-prints all over it.

Someone should tell him what was told to Chamberlain "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing! Depart, I say, let us have done with you! In the name of God, go!"